How to use Spotify Scan Codes + 360° Content (with Walkthrough)

Spotify’s popular scan codes feature just got a facelift. But first, to clarify, what exactly are Spotify scan codes?

Spotify scan codes are waveform codes that you scan with the camera of your mobile phone or tablet (like QR codes) to access linked content. That linked content can be music on a playlist, an album, or even an artist’s profile. Musicians can use these scan codes to drive people to their musical offerings in a flash. All it takes from fans is a cellphone camera and the Spotify app.

Spotify Codes + 360

This idea is kind of unique but it’s a simple enough concept: using Spotify scan codes into 360° spaces. People who come across a 360 with a Spotify scan code within it have only to take a screenshot or picture of that code to instantly access a musician’s material. (See our step-by-step walkthrough below.)

Gone are the days of scribbling a band’s name on a napkin only to forget it later. Apps like Shazam help take care of that for ya, and so do Spotify scan codes. They are a great tool for connecting fans with their favorite artist’s music.

Spotify’s scan codes are, at the time of this writing, ~1.5 years old, though their potential to engage has not faded. Is this revolutionary? Nah - pretty much every social platform has some kind of scan code thing going on. But regardless, it’s another tool musicians & companies can use to promote music and increase discoverability with less touch points or clicks.

Walkthrough Overview: Scan Codes in 360°

The following walkthrough will be done using the below 360° design, an interactive album cover by Beaumonde design wizard Shep Bryan.

Using Spotify’s scan code feature people interacting with this 360° art can access music in a whole new way on mobile.

Only available by using the Spotify mobile app, scan codes reinforce the paradigm shift towards mobile-dominant content that people more readily share & have nearly instant access to.

52% of listening on Spotify comes from mobile devices.

— Businesswire.com

Marketing & Spotify Codes

Musicians choosing to use Spotify codes within their marketing campaigns, and, specifically, within 360° designs, broaden their net of discoverability while showing themselves off as innovators.

Oh, and scan codes in 360s work on social media in the exact same way a regular 360 does. Sharing a 360° photo or design with a scan code in it is the same process as sharing a 360.

Spotify Scan Codes on Mobile: A Step-by-Step Walkthrough

You’re using your mobile phone and stumble across a sweet 360° design on a website. What’s this? There’s a scan code within the 360 that will give you instant access to linked music?!!! *plays quick air guitar*

Here’s what to do:

Step 1: Take a screenshot of the Spotify code, as seen in the 360° graphic on your mobile phone.

Mobile view screenshotted of Shep’s 360° album cover, as shown on his website.

Step 2:Open your Spotify mobile app, & tap the search bar at the top.

Step 3:Tap the camera icon in the top right (circled in orange below).

Note: You can also use scan codes from mobile phone to mobile phone. If someone has the 360° image pulled up on their phone (displaying the scan code) simply hover your camera (per step 3 above) over the scan code and — voilà — linked music appears!

Walkthrough: mobile + Desktop

Let’s say you see Shep’s above 360° album cover while scrolling through his website on your laptop, but want to scan the Spotify code onto your phone to listen.

Here’s what to do:

Open the Spotify mobile app

Tap the search bar

Click the camera icon

Hover camera over the QR code displayed within the 360 on desktop

Listen away & keep smiling

(P.S.: this process works if you see the 360° image on social media, too.)

Screenshot view of using my camera within Spotify’s mobile app to scan Shep’s scan code within his 360.